There Are Worse Things Than Death
by nectere13
Summary: Cursed to remember their past lives and not get a happily ever after, Margaery Tyrell and Robb Stark navigate the Game of Thrones as best they can with lessons from who they used to be. Fate has Sansa Stark and a plan for old prophecies to be realised.
1. Chapter 1: The Rose of Highgarden

**I swear I'm almost done the next chapter of The Queen Gambit, but this bunny got in my head and wouldn't leave. Enjoy. **

* * *

When Margaery met Lady Stark it felt as though her stomach had fallen to her feet. She had known, of course, it was impossible for it to be anyone else uniting the North, but she had prayed to all the gods she had ever known that it would not be so. For once, her quick summer smiles failed her and she had to force one onto her mouth as Renly, _her husband_, introduced her. "You are very welcome here, Lady Stark." She declared, and meant every word, even though they twisted the knife in further. "I am so sorry for your loss." She knows, better than anyone, the grief of losing one you love. She's gone through it more than once. When Renly promised Catelyn Joffrey's head, Margaery had to fight not to look away. 

* * *

_The red sands of Dorne, heat prickly in her throat, blood of battle sticky on her skin as she swings the sword with all her power to see justice done. She wants to have vengeance even more than justice._

* * *

She shook her chestnut curls slightly, fighting to clear her mind of the memory that is not hers, but is hers, just as the woman in the memory is not her, but Margaery remembers. Margaery always remembers. When she blinked back to the green-grey of Bitterbridge, everything seemed flatter, and she knew it wasn't because of the many colors of Dorne. She wanted to upbraid Loras for challenging Catelyn, who looks at her so sternly, but she couldn't. When Renly walked off with Lady Stark, she felt more lost and adrift than she would have liked. She wanted a great many things, but for once in this life, she had no idea how to get them.

* * *

She tried again to make her way into Renly's bed, only to be rebuffed by excuses again. Not that she was in any way surprised. Love had a hold on her husband and king, and it wasn't love for her. Sometimes she wished she could love him, or even that he could love her, but such thoughts feel like betrayal on many levels. She knew she needed to give him a child, and wished that she could explain to him that if she died in childbirth, he could be free, free to love whomever he wished in the guise of perpetual mourning. Dying in childbirth is a good way to die, but she couldn't explain that, even though she dreamed of it that night in her cold bed.

* * *

_Smalfolk have no Maesters like the noble houses, so she expected none. The midwives are gentle, though, more gentle than they have to be. She's weak and she knows it, sent away from her House in disgrace, weaker than she should be from lack of food. Her fingernails press into her hands as the pains wrack her, and she screams for _him_ in her sobs, even though she knows he won't find her. _

_"I want to hold him." She demands, voice weaker than the words themselves. The midwives are too focused on trying to stop the bleeding to bother to argue, and she feels purely happy for one long moment that might be a minute or an hour as her eyes close._

* * *

Renly is dead, and she felt worse for her brother than she did for herself. She didn't love Renly, and Loras loved him deeply. She knew that wound would not heal. Unable to help herself, she stole away to Lady Catelyn's tent, hoping against all hope.

"Lady Stark," she said with a curtsy. "May I come in?"

Catelyn was busy packing, now that there was no Renly to ally with, but raised an eyebrow in surprise at Renly's young, doe-eyed queen. She seemed good-hearted, as much a queen of summer as Renly was a king. "It is your tent, my lady, you merely allowed me to use it."

Margaery smiled and entered the tent, but she could not help the sadness in her eyes. "I would say you may use it as long as you wish, Lady Stark, but I know there is no reason for you to be here now."

"I must get back to my son." Catelyn replied, as much answer as reasoning. "I am sorry for your loss, Lady Margaery."

"Of course." Margaery answered, trying to smile. "Renly had no great love for me, Lady Catelyn, he wedded me solely for my father's men, and left me a maiden yet." She looked away. "Your son could use more fighters against the Lannisters, could he not?" She swallowed slightly. "You could take the Tyrell force with you."

Catelyn was more startled by this offer than she should have been. Mace Tyrell had always been ambitious, perhaps his daughter had inherited that. "My son is already promised to wed a daughter of Walder Frey, Lady Margaery. He must do his duty."

Margaery managed to keep her face from crumpling. "I would not need a marriage, Lady Stark. Our men are loyal to me."

Catelyn was startled by that offer and blinked. She felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the girl, obviously afraid of her next match, but shook her head. "Renly may have left you a maid, Lady Margaery, but a war camp is no place for one. I'm sorry." She pretended not to hear the soft catch of breath as Lady Tyrell turned and left the tent.

Margaery knew that Catelyn wasn't saying she wasn't good enough, she was speaking about family, honour and duty. Catelyn was a Tully after all. It still felt like a rejection, and she had heard those before.

* * *

_Her cheeks were flushed red as her roses as the King in the North laughed at the serious envoy. _

_"A steward's daughter?" The king hooted in amusement, laughing. "For my son?"_

_"Your second son, Your Grace." Her father replied, flushed with embarrassment. _

_The King of Winter lost all his good humor. "_My second son_ is still a prince. Come back when your master has a daughter who needs wed, steward."_

* * *

King's Landing is bright and bustling compared to Bitterbridge, but she found some little joy in it. Walking in the city, buying wares at market, playing with the children who had lost so much, all of it helped pass the time between meetings with Joffrey, who is every bit the monster she had feared. Still, she had her duty. There is always duty.

* * *

_"I took a vow." He tells her, garbed all in black. _

_"You're an idiot!" She shoots back, all rage._

_"I was needed!" He defends himself._

_"I needed you! Hang the Others! Hang the Watch!" She spits, turning away to hold on to the anger. "You swore other vows too." She blinks back. "They obviously mean less." It goes unsaid, but the 'I mean less,' makes her tongue taste acrid. Of course she means less than his kingdom, even if it isn't his responsibility._

* * *

Sansa is sweet, and in some ways that hurt more than the rest of it. It is as much for herself as it is for him, the day she washed Sansa's hair in herbs to dull the color to a brown, and wrapped Sansa in one of her Tyrell green gowns. Margaery draped her own maiden cloak over the girl's shoulders, kissed her cheek, and handed her the rose gold locket she had taken from Renly's camp before coming to King's Landing.

"Your name is Leona Fossoway of Cider Hall, your father is Onan Fossoway, your mother Tyche Ladybright of Dorne, your words are A Taste of Glory." She instructed her, firmly. "You go down to the marketplace, Ser Garth is waiting for you, he has a wagon heading north to supply Tyrell soldiers with food and arms. Once you get to camp, see Loras. He'll get you further. Show him the locket if he doesn't believe you."

Sansa wanted to thank her, but she hated to leave when Margaery was where she had been not that long ago...only worse. "Margaery, your shoulder is bleeding." She didn't mention the bruises. She knew well enough what the bruises were from. Joffrey didn't exactly hide his discipline, and Margaery had perfected submission without losing her strength, as their marriage had went on, her dresses had crept up in the neck and back, while crawling down her arms.

Margaery almost cursed after looking where Sansa eyes had been, which informed her that the dressing had either slipped or been bled through. "It's nothing to worry about, Sansa." She lied and almost wished she could stomach wrapping herself in Lannister crimson to hide the blood better.

"What happened?" Sansa asked, refusing to give it up.

Margaery resisted the urge to sigh, mostly because it would make the wound hurt more. "A rose blooms monthly, my dear Sansa. Joffrey...was hoping it was not so."

Sansa winced as if her shoulder was the one bleeding. "Come with me, Margaery. My brother...he'd protect you."

Margaery hugged the girl, despite the dull ache where the crossbow bolt had gone through her shoulder. "Your brother has one Rose Queen in his court, there is no room for two." She smiled. "Besides, I am not so easy to conceal. By morning all the City Watch and half the Kingsguard would be after us. You go. I'll be fine."

"He'll behead you for treason if he finds out you helped me escape!" Sansa half-pleaded, frantic for her one friend in King's Landing.

Margaery gave her a wan smile. "There are worse things than death, Sansa." She pulled on all her courage. "Now _go_."


	2. Chapter 2: The King of Winter

Sansa barely spoke until the border of the Riverlands, where the kind Ser Garth had allowed her to remain silent, and never even asked for payment or why she was pretending to be his sister. Loras believed them easily enough, but as Loras rode beside her on his flower-bedecked palfrey, she worried her lip. "Why are you doing this?" She asked, quietly. Her brother was fighting a war for her and the rest of their family. Loras had stayed in King's Landing to see Margaery married and then left with the next round of troops sent to the battlefield. He had to know what Joffrey was like, he had to have seen enough while in the Red Keep to know what Margaery was going through. Why take her to her brother, and abandon his own sister? Loras was supposed to be better, one of the few knights that still believed in helping damsels and chivalry, but he had left Margaery to Joffrey.

Loras glanced up at her, surprised and yet solemn. "Because this is the only thing Margaery will let me do for her."

That made Sansa pause. "What do you mean? She won't let you save her?"

Loras shook his head. "Right after the wedding she sent me off, so I could fulfill my vow to avenge…" He trailed off. "Stannis killed someone I loved. I swore I would kill him. By the time Joffrey turned on her, I was too far away, just like she planned. She knew I'd kill him or die in the attempt."

Sansa turned that around in her head, admitting to herself, if not to Loras, that a vow of avenging a loved one made all the difference. Still, she couldn't think of her father racing to help her Aunt Lyanna or Robb trying to save her and Arya without wondering who it had been Loras loved. Stannis, by all accounts, was no Joffrey, but perhaps all people pursuing the Iron Throne became monsters.

* * *

Robb Stark didn't like being a king. Unlike Stannis and Joffrey, he had no desire to be a king. All he had ever wanted was his family surrounding him at Winterfell. His men, however, deserved freedom as much as his sister did, so despite his misgivings he became the King in the North. A crown and power was not enough to make him happy. They were only means to an end. He would do what was best for his kingdom, even if it was what was worse for him. That's what Starks always did. They put others before themselves.

* * *

_He had been living happily in Winter Town, like a normal man instead of a prince, in a normal cottage with a warm fire and a makeshift bed of furs that wasn't as grand as one would find in Winterfell, but not as lonely. Then came the bannermen._

_"Your Majesty, there was an attack, your parents and brother are dead. You are the King of Winter." The eldest spoke, one who had known him since he was a boy. "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell." The knight looked down his nose at the woman in the midst of serving their dinner. "I'm sure your paramour can keep her own house without a prince."_

_He wanted to yell at him, but grief and duty stopped his words. His family was dead. His family needed him now. It wasn't his fault his father had not allowed them to marry, but now he was king and not just a spare. He had to leave, and even though it broke his heart, he could not turn back._

* * *

One of Robb's young bannerman walked into the tent where the Young Wolf was discussing his latest battle plans with his men, interrupting as quietly as he could, partially due to the large direwolf by the young king's side. "Your Grace, a southron knight has been brought into camp with a young woman, he swears he has brought Princess Sansa to you from King's Landing."

Robb's eyes widened at that, and turned to Greatjon. "Fetch my mother, we'll see what this knight has to say. He should be grateful, but his stomach was turning. This seemed all too easy.

* * *

_He was pacing the hall like a caged animal, running a hand through his hair at odd intervals when he could take the strain no longer. There was dread like a knot in his stomach, ever since they had said they had found her. His hyperactive senses heard the horses outside and he rushed to courtyard to see a broken body being dragged on boards dark with blood._

_He heard the scream but didn't realize it came from his throat._

* * *

Sansa hardly recognized her brother when he appeared from one of the tents, and it took everything she had not to fall from the horse in her haste. She was further startled into stillness when the lack of recognition in his eyes punched her in the gut.

"And you are?" Robb asked, looking at the knight, not trying to hide his disdain for the flowery knight.

"Ser Loras Tyrell." Loras replied, sitting up straighter. "My sister has asked me to see your sister to you."

"And why would the wife of an incestous baseborn king want to do that?" Robb asked, refusing to even look at the girl claiming to be Sansa.

"Stop it, Robb!" Sansa yelled, getting down from her horse as Loras seemed ready to puff up in defense of his sister. "She's my friend!" She tried to keep her voice even, but the grief crept in despite herself. "Joffrey _shot_ her, and Margaery _still_ risked her life to send me back. He'll behead her for treason if he _suspects_ she helped me." She wiped her cheeks and took a shuddering breath, giving a strangled little laugh. "You were right, you know. He is a right royal prick."

"Sansa." Robb said, finally looking at her, and past the strange brown hair. He hugged her tightly.

* * *

_He may not have the life he wanted, or the love he wanted, but if nothing else, he has his family, not whole, not complete, but enough that while he might have regrets, he puts them away and locks them up, smiling instead._

* * *

It was sometime later, over what passed for dinner in the camp, and Catelyn had helped scrub her long-lost daughter's hair clean of black walnut hull, tea and whatever else had changed the color, that the topic of the strange benefactor had come up again.

Sansa pushed her soup around with a spoon. "He's going to kill her." She whispered, without really meaning to bring down the conversation that had been eddying around her. "She refused to come with me so I could escape."

Catelyn put an arm around her daughter at the high table. "We'll pray to the gods to protect her. Lady Margaery was kind when I visited Lord Renly's camp."

Robb looked at his sister and wished he could take the haunted look from her eyes. "Maybe if you send a message back with her brother, she could find a way to follow you."

Sansa shook her head, taking a mechanical sip of rapidly cooling soup. "She said the entire City Watch and half the Kingsguard would be after us by morning if she left." She shook her head again, this time to try and clear her mind. "Some days she can barely move without wincing." She stared into the bowl. "Joffrey's a monster."

"If Stannis takes King's Landing…" Catelyn said, with an arm over her daughter's form.

"He'll put her to the sword too." Sansa pushed back from the table. "Twice a traitor, now. All because her father wants power. He wants to be a king instead of a steward. That's what Margaery says."

* * *

_The prince turns on his father angrily. "Why did you deny the suit, Father?" He should be more respectful, but he's an angry boy speaking to his father, not a prince speaking to a king in that moment._

_It's the king who scoffs, however. "You can do better than a steward's daughter, son." He smiled companionably. "She's fair I'll grant you, but there are fairer."_

* * *

"She'll find a way out if she's as clever as you claim." Robb said dismissively, trying to ignore the memories that had been following him all day. "She has to know we'd protect her for your sake. We owe her a debt."

Sansa gave a jaded little laugh that disturbed all those in hearing, especially those who had known her for a long time. "She won't." She said, with a shake of her head. "She said there isn't room for two rose queens here." She swallowed hard. "I'm not sad to be back with you." She said, looking between her mother and brother. "I just...wish everyone I cared about would stop dying for me."

She pulled the locket from her pocket and sighed, excusing herself from the table. "I think I just need some rest. Things will be better in the morning."

"I'll take you back to the tent." Catelyn said, standing quickly,leaving Robb, Grey Wind and his quiet wife at the table, the King in the North deep in thought as he picked up the locket.


	3. Chapter 3: The Captive Queen

**Author's Note:** This has been a long time in the works, but it took me awhile to decide how I wanted to go about it, whether Margaery would be found out or not. This is also the penultimate chapter in this story, though the tale will continue in an eventual sequel.

* * *

"I swear, Your Grace, I had nothing to do with it!" Margaery lied as another blow fell from one of the found herself secretly wondering if she was brave or a coward to lie about it, but lie she did anyway, praying that Sansa had made it back to her brother. She could endure the pain, she had practice.

"You lie!" Joffrey hissed, his beautiful golden face contorted in rage. "I knew that you were lying to me about something!"

Margaery was glad that he still refused to let anyone touch her face, as she looked up with him with her best mournful look. "Only that my moonsblood had come, Your Grace, I was shamed that I had failed you so utterly as a queen."

Grand Maester Pycelle grasped hard onto that idea, he and the rest of the small council struggled with Joffrey's orders and moods, and these public punishments did nothing to endear him to the realm who loved the queen. "Your Grace, perhaps the queen should be confined to her bed, to encourage her body to conceive."

Joffrey considered this, and nodded. Even now, after everything that had happened, he wanted to be like Robert, or to outdo him somehow. The fact that she had not yet given him an heir galled him. "Escort the queen to her bed, Grand Maester, and ensure she does not leave it."

As she was pulled away, Margaery caught sight of her father's pale face, his eyes wide, and forehead sweaty, as if afraid Joffrey's ire would fall on him next. Margaery barely restrained the urge to sneer. '_Aren't you glad I'm a queen, father. Isn't this lovely?'_ It wasn't entirely his fault, after all. She had been convinced that she should be a queen. If she couldn't have love, at least she could have power. She had neither.

* * *

_It had all been agreed, and she was pleased, smiling as the ravens spread the word and the cautious, strange Children of the Forest shook hands with those before them, all present surrounded by the strange trees with carved faces. Her own hand was wrapped tightly around that of her beloved. Everything was going well. Finally peace would be found with the Children, as it had between The First King who had taken his men north after the quarrel crossing into this land, and her grandfather Garth, who had settled in the wide expanse further south. She turned her head, hiding a happy giggle in her future husband's furred cloak, and smiled as he wrapped an arm around her,_

_So distracted was she that she didn't see the child with the strange green eyes approach them until it spoke. "The forest weeps for you." The child intoned._

_She lifted her head, startled. "Why? All is well." _

_The Child shook his head slowly. "You will live and die again and again and again until all these things and all these people have passed far into myth, until you don't believe them yourselves, and each time you will meet but briefly and be ripped apart again, until the Gods say enough and the weirwoods weep. Then in the night that comes will you bring the age of peace between the first men and the children back."_

_Beside her, her future husband stood solemn, listening, and declared, sounding much like his grandfather: "Love endures all."_

_"You will endure love." The Child replied, and returned to his kind as silently as he had come to them._

_She shivered, overwhelmed and naive. She was a fool._

* * *

Olenna was one of the few people allowed to visit her, and even then she was under constant watch. She hated her grandmother seeing her this way, but it was a reprieve from maddening hours with guards forbidden to speak or interact with her, and handmaiden that may as well have been a silent sister, only permitted to help her to the chamberpot and back to bed. That humiliation was perhaps the worst, that she wasn't even allowed use of a privy, only a chamberpot, before once again being put to bed like an invalid.

"I wish you would let me bring you some wine, my dear." Olenna murmured, well aware of their guards, and thus unable to speak freely. "I do so hate to see you languish."

"I am only preparing my body to do its' duty, grandmother, not _languishing_ away like an invalid. My apartments are quite lavish. His Grace takes good care of me." They both knew as the weeks went on that this had become less and less true. Olenna would rather see her out of her misery than be a queen like this. She did not hold with kings and crowns, or she would have never married Luthor. When Olenna was offering to bring her wine, it wasn't the wine on offer.

What amused Margaery, even as depressed as she was, was the fact that she knew exactly which poison the Queen of Thorns would choose. It was a secret thing, carried in the Tyrell line, as yet undiscovered by outsiders. She hated to admit it, but she was sorely tempted. It was only her promise that she would not hasten her own death again that kept her from accepting. How long she would hold out, she didn't know.

"Perhaps one of your Great-Uncle Gorman's fertility brews?" Olenna suggested, with a canny eye. Both Tyrell women knew their conversation was being reported. "They did help your mother greatly, four living children is quite a thing to boast."

Margaery could have kissed her, but kept her expression placid. "I'd rather nature take its' course, Grandmother."

Of course, Joffrey disagreed, and the next time Olenna visited, it was with a bright vial that secretly ensured she would not be bearing a prince. The 'fertility treatments' were one way for Margaery to remain sane, because she would not carry Joffrey's child. She would break her promise and taste Rootsbane once more before that happened.

* * *

_She thought heartbreak was supposed to get easier. You would think as many times as they had been around this curse that knowing he had perished in the Field of Fire wouldn't be quite so hard. Her father was happy, he had bent the knee easily and been rewarded Highgarden. Many families of the reach were all but frothing at the mouth in rage because they had better claims to leadership of the Reach. A small price, he said, as he spoke about planting a new Oakenseat, little knowing he had cut his daughter deeply._

_It was anger and grief and rage. Everything she had known had been destroyed by these people and their dragons. So many were lost, and to be lost in that way...it burned something in her too. Why should she live? Why did they die and she was spared? Why did _he _get to leave her behind?_

_So, she locked herself in the Highgarden library, using its' knowledge and years of her own gleaned from experience and everyone she could ever learn from until she had it. A poison deadly enough to give the imbiber no chance, but that took long enough to say any goodbyes. The only symptoms were a chill and an ache in the chest. She named it Rootsbane. She had no idea hastening her death would worsen the curse. Before there had always been a chance that they could be together...afterwards they never had._

* * *

One day out of many, while lying in bed aching from Joffrey's latest punishments for her failures and trying to ignore the silent sentinels in her room, she heard a ruckus and the clang of steel. She looked toward the window as the guard hurriedly left to discover what was the matter.

"Go." Margaery told the handmaiden, who was shaking with the realisation that being found with Joffrey's queen was a death sentence. "Hide yourself from the sack." She knew what would happen when Stannis found her and she'd spare the girl that, as well as herself having witnesses. She almost wished he had come a month ago, when she could still stand unaided, so that she could at least face death standing. She pulled at the ties keeping her to the bed, and sighed. This was surely going to be one of her most undignified deaths. Perhaps if she pleaded, Stannis would take a message to Sansa and tell her that she loved her like a sister and the hidden message would get through.

She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of war going on, letting her mind drift to different places and times. It was hours before the clamour died down, and she waited to see who was the victor. The last time Olenna had been prepared to visit she had slipped her granddaughter a small vial of Rootsbane and Margaery had hidden it in a carved whorl of her bedpost. If Joffrey won, she decided, she would take it, promises be damned.

When the door finally opened, almost a day later, she lifted her head to see which kind of death would greet her, and found love and horror staring back. "Oh gods, I've started hallucinating from lack of food and water." She groaned, closing her eyes and letting herself fall back from the strain. She shook her head, as much as she was able.

She heard whispers, though she couldn't make out the words, and then the door closing. She refused to open her eyes, chanting in her head about how hallucinations were not real, when a touch on her cheek made her open her eyes.

"You're not imagining me, sweeting." He said, stroking her cheek. "I came for you."

Margaery stared into blue eyes, trying to swallow. "How?" She breathed. "Why?" And then she was sobbing because she didn't know if it was a thousand times better or worse, and even after he had cut the leather ties, she was struggling against muscles that hadn't been used and her own emotions to even sit up.

"Shh." He crooned softly, picking her up and swinging her into his arms as though she were his bride, and holding her close. "He's dead. He won't hurt you again. I've got you."


End file.
